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Tuesday, 31 December 2013

As we approach 2014, let's have a look back on the major SWAT events that occurred during the year that just passed:

The first week of January 2013 saw the completion of the Mini-RD tournament that was played exclusively on the Sirens Den map. A few weeks later yet another 1.0 ViP clan (T3) closed, allegedly due to the fact that old «|US|» member Fever was caught double-clanning. To round off the month, Just Frags announced that they were going to host a new RD tournament.

With 8 teams signed up including |WM|, FoX| and »Cartel«, the JF|| tournament got well under way in February. During this period, well-known BS player bjoggi came into the spotlight after a screenshot of an xfire conversation got leaked which showed him discussing .ini modifications.

March saw the re-introduction of GameTracker support for SWAT4 servers, while an idea about a public 1.0 server with "no limitations on the rules" was brought forward. Unfortunately, it didn't come to fruition.

The month of May saw the rebirth of {TWT}clan, a true disaster from the outset which was only compounded further as it was renamed to Ultimate Force and included slogans such as "Fear us". In the final week of the period, one of the established BS clans {SWT} got closed, while the remaining active «|US|» members joined {FAB} as more clans started feeling the full force of an aging game.

In June, the VIP World Cup was confirmed to go ahead. The majority of matches were played in July, but the tournament finally finished in August, with Turkey claiming their second successive crown.

September 2013, just like October 2012 (when GameSpy shut down) was a damaging month to the game's survival. DExUS announced that UAC3 would be closing in the New Year, which will undoubtedly leave the competitive and public SWAT4 scene in disarray.

In October, ||ESA|| clan announced that they would be hosting the final UAC-based SWAT tournament. While matches starting taking place in November, the SWAT community got "blessed" with the arrival of PVP clan, with the StoneCold saga still vivid in the memory.

Finally, in December, |MYT| confirmed they would be running a new Co-Op tournament (which has reached the latter stages), while the ESA tourney came to its conclusion as |WM| clinched their second trophy of the year.

In last year's summary, it was widely predicted that 2013 would be the final year for SWAT. However, it survived very successfully with some especially memorable moments from the competitive arena. But as we now bid goodbye to UAC, what lies next in the fate for this legendary shooter?

Thursday, 26 December 2013

A ban infection has hit a selection of servers, with many players from 1.0 being affected. It seems the servers which use MarkMods (4U, FAB, SoH) have been hit, with a large number of clan members and public players alike being unable to access these servers. As there are no visible additions on their respective ban lists, it is likely that a MM-related bug has caused it.

Thursday, 19 December 2013

There were very few interviews in a long time, so as a Christmas treat here is the second in
the space of a week. Time for a chat with BrK (xfire: wannalife):

1 Tell us about yourself, an overview of
your SWAT history…

I started SWAT4 (my first online game) 6-7 years ago after being asked by Gunes,
my uncle, in 1.1. At first, we joined
AiR clan which was originally ViP mode. Playing there a couple of years with the likes of Xabi, Ocboo, Micro and
Tyler, I learnt the game well. Thanks Xabii for everything :) I played so much with LSF and AE which was the core of
the old Delta. Then Gunes left the game but I continued. A few years later AiR got closed - some
members joined ELF, some WM and some left. I joined WM with Xabi and met some Turks there such as HecToR, KrAQL,
ViRuS and SilverKnight. With this team including Storm and Kamikaze, we participated in the original Nation’s
cup. Then I left 1.1 since it was going
inactive and came to 1.0. In TRS I met VaLeRa who is now my best friend here. It was a Turkish clan and after playing there for so much time, we
founded Cartel.

Monday, 16 December 2013

With 25 matches complete over a 7 week period, the VIP tournament organized by ||ESA|| has come to an end. World Mafia emerged as champions after a 3-2 victory over Cartel in the final. Congrats to |WM| and a worthy mention for the runners-up Cartel and 3rd place incumbents JF||.

The last UAC-based SWAT4 event of its kind ran very smoothly overall, so a job well done for the organizers who dealt with adversity and solved any problems successfully. Hopefully the conclusion of the tournament will not symbolize the ending of competitive gaming within SWAT4.

Thursday, 12 December 2013

With UAC3 shutting down in less than 3 weeks time, it's time to have a chat with the founder of it all, a person who has put a lot of effort into keeping the SWAT community (and other games) as clean as possible. Lads and gents, interview with {USSP}DExUS:

1 Tell us about the history of UAC - what inspired you to make it, the changes and developments (UAC4SWAT, UAC2 and 3). Initially, did you plan it just for SWAT4 or was it always in your thoughts to cover a range of games?

I was annoyed by the amount of cheaters in SWAT4 and since our team was one of the TOP 3 European SWAT 4 teams at the time and the fact that we competed in the Electronics Sports League (ESL), the situation with new cheating teams was very bad. So I decided to do something to prevent cheating at league level. That is where SW4TCH was born. The design and functions were very poor and it was dismissed by the community. However league admins did like the idea.

So later I put together UAC4SWAT with the help of Snipes who was ClanBase admin at the time. I was also ESL admin at the time of UAC4SWAT creation so we put our heads together and added all info and stuff that might be needed for league admins. Even though UAC4SWAT initially had no security or protection whatsoever we managed to catch large amount of cheaters. Since I got tons of requests to create CoD2 and CS version of UAC4SWAT, we decided to create a whole new product that would be capable of supporting any game, and thus the "modern era" UAC (UAC2) was born.

2 Give us an insight into the work you had to undertake (e.g checking screens and matches, solving queries on forum, rolling out new updates, etc). Coupled with the loss of time and money, running UAC will have been far from easy for you. Did you have many regrets/difficulties?

Well, even if you or someone else has LEAGUE ADMIN status at UAC pages they can see only about 30% of what I can see and do. All error reports that happen to players - even those that are minor and have no impact on UAC functioning - are sent to UAC pages where they get reviewed. There are about 6000-12000+ error reports generated per day. It depends on the amount of matches. The errors are minor, but sometimes it is needed to check some of them if they are repeating for a certain player and evaluate if there is a way to fix the issue and if the effort is worth it.

Friday, 6 December 2013

First COOP tournament in SWAT4 is being prepared by |MYT|Edward (xfire: edwardbeer) on 1.1 version. This mode is usually not known for being competitive but more for the fun it can bring. Organizers also promise (unspecified) surprises. Tournament is announced to start on December 20th. For more details head off to MYT forum topic or to dedicated xfire tournament platform site.